Easy Pecan Pie Bars

All the fabulous flavor of pecan pie in a chewy, gooey bar recipe made easy with a cake mix base.

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God bless my mama. She is such a hands-on grandmother. She attends all of the kids’ games (and sometimes practice!) and helps with getting them to and from as much as she can. She’ll actually be taking one of the kids to the orthodontist in the morning for me while I’m at work!

As my friend Amanda says about her mom and mine, “we got good nanas”.

Lord, yes, we sure do, girl. Yes we do!

Not only is she a good nana, she’s a good mama too. She loves to cook, and she knows I struggle to make time to cook new recipes for y’all so when she came walking through the door with a glorious pan of pecan bars for me to share with y’all, I could have kissed her right on the mouth!

And you see this gorgeous serving dish the bars are on? Mama had that in her arms when she came walking in too! She got it for me at Home Goods just because and it ended up being the perfect thing to take these photos with!

She bought a cookbook by Anne Byrn called American Cookie and has been cranking out sweets from it! Side note, I’ve had two recipes from this book and both of them have been absolutely perfect so you might consider getting the book!

This recipe, which Anne calls Pecan Surprise Bars, is named as such because SURPRISE! it’s made with a cake mix. I love recipes made with cake mixes because there are less ingredients to fool with and well, they’re just easier!

Now, what I learned after I butchered these trying to cut them for pictures, is that you should refrigerate them before cutting for picture-perfect, tidy squares.

I was in a hurry (because SURPRISE! one of the kids had to get to practice) so I couldn’t take the time to chill these first.

I also added a step in the recipe below to spray the sides of the pan with cooking spray because the filling will absolutely stick to the pan. The bottom has enough butter that it won’t stick, but, trust me, you’ll need to grease the sides.

These pecan pie bars taste just like pecan pie! I’m actually considering making a batch of these for Thanksgiving instead of making pecan pie!

Though, Husband wouldn’t be too happy because we’ve turned that Canadian into a pecan pie loving fool!

I’ve added a few ideas at the bottom of the recipe below but I’ll share them here too. I think these would be fabulous variations to the recipe!

• Substitute walnuts and black walnut extract for the pecans and vanilla if you prefer walnuts over pecans. [Dawn, this one’s for you 😘 ]
• Add raisins and cinnamon to the filling for a Fall-flavored twist.
• Add chocolate chips and a nip of bourbon to make these into Kentucky Derby Bars.

If you love desserts made easy with a cake mix, try some of these recipe too!
• Cherry Danish Cake - An easy semi-homemade cake recipe dotted with cherry pie filling, drizzled with sour cream icing and topped with slivered almonds.
• Impossible 5-Ingredient Chocolate Cake - An impossibly moist, fudgy, decadent chocolate bundt cake recipe made with just five ingredients.
• Lemon Crumble Cream Cake - A tender lemon-kissed cake with lemon cheesecake filling topped with a crumb streusel topping dusted with powdered sugar.
• Cake Mix Cookies - Make these super easy cookies from any cake mix using any morsels.
• White Wine Cake - A super moist, rich cake recipe made with white wine and a touch of cinnamon.
• Pistachio Cake - Also called Watergate Cake, this moist cake recipe uses pistachio pudding in the cake and in the frosting.

Recipe for Easy Pecan Pie Bars

If you're looking for a recipe for Classic Pecan Pie, I am absolutely IN LOVE with mine if you'd like to check it out!

Easy Pecan Pie Bars

Yield: 30-33 Bars

Author: Mandy Rivers | South Your Mouth

Prep time: 10 MinCook time: 45 MinTotal time: 55 Min

All the fabulous flavor of pecan pie in a chewy, gooey bar recipe made easy with a cake mix base.

Ingredients

Crust:

• 1 18-oz yellow cake mix, divided
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, melted
• 1 egg, beaten

Filling:

• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 1/2 cups dark corn syrup
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups chopped pecans
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Instructions

1. Measure out 2/3 cup of the cake mix then place in a large mixing bowl; set aside. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. For the crust, combine remaining cake mix, melted butter and egg in a mixing bowl then stir until dough comes together (the dough is thick so consider using the paddle attachment of a stand mixer).
3. Spray the sides of a 13x9 pan with cooking spray then spread dough over the bottom of the pan using your fingertips or a rubber spatula.
4. Bake crust at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown. Remove pan from oven then set aside.
5. For the filling, add brown sugar, corn syrup, vanilla and eggs to the mixing bowl with the reserved cake mix. Beat with an electric mixer on low speed for two minutes then pour mixture over crust.
6. Add pecans in an even layer over wet mixture then sprinkle with salt.
7. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until browned and filling is nearly set. Remove from oven, cool completely then cut into bars. Store at room temperature in an air-tight container.

Notes

• For neatly sliced bars, refrigerate until bars are firm before cutting (which I obviously didn’t do for this batch!).
• Substitute walnuts and black walnut extract for the pecans and vanilla to change things up if you’d like to try something different. 
• Add raisins and cinnamon to the filling for a Fall-flavored twist.
• Add chocolate chips and a nip of bourbon to make these into Kentucky Derby Bars.

https://www.southyourmouth.com/2019/10/easy-pecan-pie-bars.html

Images and text © South Your Mouth LLC 2019

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